BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

MASSENA -- Job losses and a relatively flat taxable assessed value in the town of Massena is putting taxpayers under strain as the town board navigates what will likely be another difficult budget process. 

Deputy Town Supervisor Sam Carbone recently addressed the matter during a special meeting to present to the preliminary budget, the first step in a weeks-long process. 

In his comments to attendees, Carbone said the total assessed value within the town has largely remained flat for the better part of a decade. 

Couple that with rising costs and job loss and the tax base is stretched thin in efforts to maintain services. 

Carbone said only two options really remain and neither are good for taxpayers. 

“The only way to combat that is either raise taxes or cut services and services have been cut. There's not much left to do,” he said.

That's all due to a taxable assessed value that has only grown 0.44% in 10 years, according to Carbone. 

He said the total value was $539,440,150 in 2017 and has only risen to $541,790,590 in 2026. 

Carbone said bringing more jobs and development to the town is a top priority, as it has been for several years, but in the end major corporations have come and gone. 

The withdrawal of Air Products in 2025 led to the loss of a $500 million green hydrogen facility that promised to employ at least 200 workers. 

Similar stories have also come and gone, with development on the cusp of taking root, only to be canceled or moved in the eleventh hour. 

Carbone said that's why he isn't willing to just write-off a planned project at the former Alcoa East site. 

North Country Colocations Services currently operates a Bitcoin operation at the site that currently employs "around 80 or so workers," according to officials. 

Though a 1.5 million square foot expansion project has drawn the ire of residents throughout the county, Carbone noted NCCS contributes heavily to the tax base each year. 

“The facility out there is assessed for $24 million and the town captures $160,000 a year annually from that site. Without the old smelter that NCCS is occupying, our taxable assessed value would be lower than levels pre-2007,” Carbone said.

Carbone said a major step back like that would fall on taxpayers to make up and would almost certainly come with a loss of jobs and services as well. 

“We can either continue asking fewer taxpayers to pay more, or we can work together to grow the tax base, create opportunity, and strengthen our community. The answer isn’t simply higher taxes. It’s more taxpayers, more investment, more jobs, and more opportunity,” he said.

If that were to happen the town would likely end up taxing families out of their homes, further worsening the problem, Carbone said. 

He said it was time to come together and form. Comprehensive plan that "helps raise our assessed value" so further taxes can be collected from the development, rather than families who are struggling to get by. 

Carbone also called for protections on electric rates for families in the plan. 

"That’s what we plan on doing going forward. We need growth in this community,” he said.

Carbone said recent development and investments by the New York Power Authority are prime motivators for development in Massena. 

If companies fail to come to the town though, he said it would be "nothing but a bunch of wires" that sends power to the southern reaches of the state. 

"We need development or we're going to fall even further behind," he said. 

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